Brown water safe to drink

"We plan to renew pipes before they reach the point of failure." Ross Mcneil

Officials say Marton’s water is safe to drink despite days of brown liquid flowing through the town’s taps.

Residents are calling for action after a burst water main, near Kensington Rd on Monday night, caused discolouration to the town’s water supply.

Rangitikei District Council chief executive Ross Mcneil said the blowout was fixed early on Tuesday, but the brown-coloured water could be around for days.

The incident caused material that had collected on the inside of pipes to dislodge, Mcneil said.

He urged residents to flush discoloured water by running taps for a lengthy period.

‘‘This buildup is normal for all water reticulation networks and accumulates over decades, but once dislodged discolours the water.

‘‘This ‘pulse’ of discoloured water is distributed throughout the network and it’s difficult to know exactly where it will go. The only way of removing it is by flushing, which is what staff have been doing [on Tuesday] across the network.

‘‘Inevitably, some of the discoloured water will end up in homes and businesses, and people should apply the same flushing treatment – by turning on the cold taps inside and outside until the water runs clear.’’

Mcneil said despite the discolouration, the water remained safe and there was no health risk to the community.

The latest incident was not related to reports of similar problems earlier in the year, he said.

The council’s infrastructure is made up of pipes of varying ages, some of which are very old.

While it had a renewal programme to upgrade pipes based on their age and condition, small sections of the council’s water pipes failed occasionally ahead of scheduled replacements, Mcneil said.

‘‘We plan to renew pipes before they reach the point of failure.’’